BP’s oil spill response plan – a key part of their application to
drill for oil near the Amazon Reef in the Amazon Mouth Basin in
Brazil – relies on methods which are either untested or
unusable in the area.
Capping a blowout in deep water requires the use of Remote
Operated Vehicles, which may not be able to function in the
strong currents in the Amazon Mouth basin. Furthermore, the
chemical BP intend to use to disperse a spill, Corexit, has been
shown to be highly damaging to coral, and the Brazilian
environment agency, IBAMA, have told the oil company Total that
they are not allowed to use it in the area.
Sara Ayech, oil campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said –
“From these documents, it appears that BP’s solution to a
blowout in the area may not be possible to implement in these
waters, and their solution to a spill is likely to damage the
coral reef it is intended to protect, and is unlikely to be
allowed. It would be incredibly reckless to license them to
drill in this area under these circumstances. What we are risking
–a new, largely unexplored and apparently biodiverse ecosystem –
is far more valuable than whatever oil BP might be able to
extract.”
BP controls a block in the Amazon Mouth basin, and intends
to drill in August 2018. The company’s environmental
impact assessment (EIA), submitted to the Brazilian
authorities for the project states it will use Corexit 9500 to
clean up potential spills.
â— Corexit is a
chemical dispersant which was used extensively during the
Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, when 11 workers died and
roughly 200 million gallons of crude oil were spilled into the
Gulf of Mexico.
â— In
2013, scientists
found that the chemical had a negative impact
on coral reefs in the Gulf of Mexico.
â— Researchers
from Mote
Marine Laboratory found that the chemical made
the coral less likely to survive, with the chance of death
increasing according to the level of concentration the organisms
were exposed to.
â— Even at low
levels of concentration the scientists found that some coral had
significantly lowered survival rates.
â— The branch of
the Brazilian environment ministry, IBAMA, in charge of
regulating oil drilling in the Amazon Mouth Basin has prohibited
French company Total from using Corexit in the event of an oil
spill, citing the damage it could cause the reef.
Link: http://www.mma.gov.br/port/conama/legiabre.cfm?codlegi=718
BP’s plans are also dependent on the use of ROVs to cap a
blowout in the deep water where they would be drilling.
â— Both BP and
Total’s plans to clean up a potential oil spill in the area have
been further cast into doubt by a study which found that remote
operated vehicles (ROVs) would struggle to operate in the
Amazon Mouth Basin.
â— During the
Deepwater Horizon disaster, ROV teams worked non-stop to try and
contain the spill, as this piece inNational
Geographic from 2010 explains.
â— But a
technical paper prepared for the Rio Oil & Gas Expo and
Conference 2014 casts doubt on the ability of oil companies to
use existing ROVs to clean up an oil spill in the Amazon Mouth
Basin. The report, which you can read asummary of
here and which was led by engineer David
Frantantoni, suggests that is it uncertain whether ROVs and other
vehicles could operate in the intense currents found in the
Amazon Mouth Basin.
â— A section
reads: “Opportunities exist to apply recent technological
innovations such as high-endurance autonomous underwater and
surface vehicles. However, the ability to effectively operate
robotic vehicles in a western boundary current regime such as the
NBC has yet to be demonstrated.”
Earlier this year, Greenpeace launched a campaign to
protect and explore the Amazon Reef, working with a team of
researchers to produce the first
underwater images of the ecosystem. More than
one million people around the world have already pledged to
defend the reef, demanding that Total and BP drop their plans to
drill nearby.
IBAMA are due to make a decision on whether to license
Total and BP’s exploration projects in the coming weeks.
